The author tells the story of a 5th-grade teacher who challenges her class to take on self-identities as readers. Students defined seven characteristics of what it means to be a good reader and considered whether those characteristics applied to them: Good readers read for fun, talk about books, usually finish the book they're reading, can relate…

Describes how two fifth-grade boys developed and sustained a love of fantasy books. Describes how these two discriminating readers have developed taste and a social context for their reading experience. Shows how their experience demonstrates important principles about reading and about reading curriculum. (SR)

This article considers what happened when a teacher posed the following question to her fifth graders during literature discussions: "Why might we read more than one story about a topic or a person?" As the students responded to this question across several weeks, they began to develop a more comprehensive conception of themselves as readers,…

Discusses how a fifth-grade teacher gained a new perspective on the reading habits of a reluctant male reader identified as having a specific learning disability in language. Notes that the student became enchanted with nonfiction, forcing the teacher to reevaluate her value system that placed reading, writing, and speaking above all other forms…

Describes a year-long teacher action-research study involving fifth graders that used trade books to teach students various reading-comprehension strategies. Finds that students retained and transferred strategy learning to other texts and contexts; valued reading more and reported reading more; and demonstrated enhanced appreciation for books and…

The purpose of this study was to determine if cross-age peer tutoring of fifth graders with learning disabilities and kindergarten students would have an effect on reading attitudes and reading achievement. A tutoring program was designed to meet the literacy needs of fifth grade special education resource students as well as provide enriching…

This report describes a cross-age tutoring program implemented to improve reading comprehension skills in a group of regular students in a rural elementary school. A targeted group of four fifth-grade students and four second-grade students were matched for cross-age tutoring sessions. The students developed reading comprehension skills through…

Describes how the parents of the author's fifth-grade students joined the literature circles in her classroom--either in person, through writing, or through recorded conversations. Notes that the literature discussions became richer and more sophisticated as families added layers of meaning to the context built in class. (SR)

The development and evaluation of Informed Strategies for Learning (ISL), an experimental curriculum to enhance children's reading comprehension, are described in this report. The report opens with a summary of the project, in which 20 modules--each focusing on a different strategy--were designed and 60 lesson plans were developed. This section…

Discusses the possibilities for pleasure, community, and collective meaning making among fifth- and sixth-grade students and various adults (teachers, parents, and school staff) during their prolonged engagement with a single literary work, Lois Lowry's "The Giver," as they read and reread the novel, annotating the text with their…

Approaches that were used to teach English to fifth grade children of Mexican-American migrant farm laborers are described. The students were categorized as limited in English language proficiency. The children's academic self-concept was so low that they perceived learning as involving impossible tasks, and they believed that they were the source…